posted at 6:01 pm on June 9, 2014 by Allahpundit

Of all the polls over the past few years exposing Democrats’ Bush hysteria as the partisan hackery it was — see the ones on drones and spying on reporters, for starters — today’s is my very favorite, just because the demand it places on Obama is so small. Surely, surely, people who spent years screeching about “King George” and the executive run amok don’t object to a federal law that simply requires O to notify Congress a month before releasing any Gitmo detainees. There’s nothing Congress can do to stop him; his Article II power is supreme. All they ask is a little heads-up before we start sending jihadis back out into the big brave world.

Nope. And note that it’s “liberals,” not “Democrats,” who are the most extreme in their position. Centrist Dems are the ones being consistent with their Bush-era rhetoric about a runaway executive, not lefties.

For maximum hilarity, Pew should have refined the question and asked about signing statements. Your best defense here if you’re a liberal is to note that GOP sentiment has also veered wildly back towards legislative power now that Democrats hold the White House. There’s an element of partisan hackery running both ways, although (a) there are plenty of familiar names among righty hawks, like Michael Mukasey, Krauthammer, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who are backing Obama on his assertion of executive authority, and (b) I’m not convinced that Bush would have gotten a pass from the base on partisan grounds if he had made a deal that involved releasing the Taliban Five. He got hammered by the right for a lesser offense in negotiating the Dubai Ports deal. Counterterror imperatives are capable of trumping partisan loyalties. Or rather, per Pew’s results, they should be.

The other key finding from today’s poll is unsurprising given the reaction among members of Bergdahl’s own unit to the prisoner exchange, but here you go. Proof positive that “leave no man behind” isn’t working in this case with the audience that should, in theory, be most receptive to it:

Veterans are much more harsh in their assessment of the 28-year-old sergeant. Only 6% of veterans who responded say they sympathized with him, while 33% say they were angry. By 68%-16%, veterans say Obama made the wrong decision.

“If he was a captured prisoner of war, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” says Joe Davis, the director of public affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “He put his teammates in jeopardy, and you absolutely don’t do that in a combat zone.”

Veterans are worried about the precedent set by the transfer, Davis says. “We have a long history in this country of not negotiating with terrorists,” he says. “And we just did.”

Among “veteran households,” the split on whether O made the right call is 26/55; among households without a veteran, it’s 37/38. That divide, as much as the predictable partisan divide, is what’s responsible for the overall 34/43 disapproval of the swap. If Obama had had veterans in his corner (especially the vets who served alongside Bergdahl), he would have stamped out this brushfire over the deal within 48 hours of it happening. The fact that he doesn’t is really the only reason it’s blazed on into a second week.

Update: Leave no man behind? Note rows two and three from this new Reuters poll:

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Good, that means that the next republican president can just ignore the War Powers Act, and the libs will be just as happy with the president ignoring a Congressional law seeking to limit the Commander and Chief.

Informing Congress is out of the path of actually getting the deed done. Thus, it seems like a superfluous (picky) task that only a stickler would ask insist upon. It’s dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s, and adhering to conventions doesn’t show you care as much as spontaneous selfies and hashtags.

Liberals like their deeds–their agenda–done. Anything can be side-stepped for the cause.

Not a single “liberal” who is defending obama, over his obviously illegal prisoner swap, cares anything about the swap itself, or Abdullah Bergdahl – as is ALWAYS the case, they are simple in this to defend obama – Period. Really, this poll is no surprise – obama’s cultists always defend him, no matter what he does.

OT: On Special Report, Brit Hume a little while ago came out big for the immigrant kids invading the country.

So, Brit, does this mean that we have to welcome their parents with open arms after they essentially abandoned their kids to get to the US on their own?

If the US keeps these kids, terminate all parental rights, and allow adoptions. If not adopted, put them in orphanages run by conservatives. Don’t make citizenship available until well in to adulthood.

Benedict Arnold chose to put on the uniform, too. Did he serve with ‘honour and distinction,’ too?

Col Ralph Peters nails it, again:

…

But won’t the brass stand up for fairness, military discipline, and justice? The bitter truth is that they haven’t thus far. Our generals knew within days of Bergdahl’s abandonment of his post that the evidence was overwhelming that he had deserted (ask them, under oath). But they made the decision to keep it quiet. The initial reason General Petraeus gave to me just days after Bergdahl walked off was that the military wished to shield Bergdahl’s parents.

Here’s where it gets interesting and ugly. The “noble POW” story took off politically. Commander after commander played along (as did Congress). Worse, the Army itself tried to beatify Bergdahl as some sort of hero-martyr to the troops, printing up solidarity posters and even creating life-size pasteboard cutouts of Bergdahl. Naturally, the troops knew it was BS (you can’t fool Private Snuffy very long, and word soon gets around). The agitprop was amateurish but outrageous (majors put up the posters, and sergeants rolled their eyes). Every officer involved in that effort should be relieved of duty.

It’s time for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, to man up. He inherited this Big Lie, but he shouldn’t pass it on. It’s his duty to follow the legal orders of our commander-in-chief, but it’s not his duty to provide cover for the president’s political shenanigans. As for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, he’s clearly a lost cause on this case, with his claim that you can’t prove that any soldiers died because of Bergdahl, even though they were killed while the massive search for Bergdahl was underway and they died where they otherwise would not have been. (Dear Secretary Hagel: From one former sergeant to another former sergeant, show a glimmer of decency. You’re acting like some damned officer.)

As for President Obama himself, there’s far more news to tell. For all his pretensions about his regard for the troops, this man has lavished vastly more attention on the family of a deserter than any other military family has ever received from him (just as Bergdahl is getting more intensive medical attention than a genuine hero would). And you’re thinking, “Rose Garden,” right? But this has gone on for years, with a full colonel or brigadier general ordered to report to the Bergdahl family every three to six months with an update about their son. Has the White House taken so great an interest in the families of those who’ve been gravely wounded in the line of duty? Or of those who died? No, it has not. The White House fell in love with a family clearly several raisins short of a full bowl of granola. Not despite their son’s desertion, but because of it.

Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl, too, have been Obama’s pawns. Our outrage should aim at the president, not them.

Of course, Private Bergdahl himself is the perfect soldier for those whose concept of our military was formed by Oliver Stone movies. Reportedly disillusioned with the war, he just walks away, a model of nobility, to seek out the enemy and find common ground. Bergdahl is a hero — for everyone on the left who despises our military. It’s a shame Sean Penn’s too old to play the role.

Meanwhile, with a straight face, Obama and his fellow travelers in the White House and media caution us not to “pre-judge” Bergdahl. That would have been a more credible plea before the president and his advisers pre-judged Bergdahl as a hero.

In closing, let me paraphrase the words of a fine U.S. Army lawyer from the past: “Mr. President, have you no shame?”

It was a BS question. I can’t cut and paste from the pdf on my tablet but the actual question asked (top line pdf in side bar at poll link) was essentially what is posted in the results. It’s BS because the question is NOT should the president have to inform congress of something like this (that was the discussion when the bill hit Obama’s desk and he didn’t veto it) but rather something like:

President Obama signed a law that said he must notify congress at least 30 days in advance of releasing any prisoner at GITMO for any reason. He failed to do that in the swap for Bergdahl’s release. Should the administration have notifed congress at least 30 days in advance in this particular case?

I’ll guarantee that most of those LIV types who said no he shouldn’t in this poll have no idea that Obama violated a law that he himself signed into law.

Agreeing with the law and whether congress should have passed it or Obama should have vetoed it is a separate matter. The fact is they did pass, he did sign it and then he promptly flipped “faithfully administer the laws” the bird at the first opportunity. It is the failure to follow the law he himself signned that is at issue with the “informing congress”.

The poll question completely misses this context and as such the poll results mean diddely dinkus.